The Dundas gallery in Edinburgh has an unusual new attraction: a painting of an elephant… painted by the elephant itself.

Paya the elephant, from Thailand, is apparently the only elephant of six that are artistically trained to have “mastered his own likeness”, and as you can see, has done a pretty decent job of painting a picture of itself.

Victoria Khunapramot, head of a fine art company is the person behind bringing these pictures to Britain, she explained:

“But they are very intelligent animals and create the entire paintings with great gusto and concentration within just five or 10 minutes - the only thing they cannot do on their own is pick up a paintbrush, so it gets handed to them.”

If an elephant wants to change to a different colour, it simply drops the brush.

To the outside observer, this all sounds a bit farfetched. Khunapromot counters skepticism by saying that “They are trained by artists who fine-tune their skills, and they paint in front of an audience in their conservation village, leaving no one in any doubt that they are authentic elephant creations.”

This can’t be real… can it?!